Nice day for a boat ride

Although it turned out to be a pretty day, the 15 knot breeze prevented us from looking for the cobia where they were last week. Chuck Laughridge, Tom Bennett (Comfort Inn in Morehead City) and I spent about 5 hours looking everywhere else, logging about 90 miles and we saw nothing but Spanish Mackeral. The trollers were doing pretty good with the Spanish, but they weren't thick enough to cast a fly.

Meanwhile, Capt. Greg has been working on ths speks in the Neuse River and Capt. Ray has been doing really good with the flounder gigging.

George

cobia, flounder, trout, groupers, tuna, wahoo, dolphin....

Jimmy and Scott Wiggins. Jimmy got this little one on a trout rod and 10 pound test. Scott is doing battle with the big 'un. Back at the dock, the 4 that we "dried out". 35, 43, 44 and 50 pounds.



Ray Massengill gigged 25 flounder two nights ago. He went bottom fishing today, plenty of grouper, sea bass and trigger fish and 2 cobia. After he boated his limit of groupers, he headed offshore and caught 13 dolphin,two 40 pound tuna and a wahoo within 3 hours.

Greg caught two limits of keeper trout today. If the wind blows there have been a bunch of 10-15 pound bluefish on light tackle in the hook.

All in all fishing is red hot. Better give us a call now, availability is very limited.

groupers and cobia

Capt. Ray left the dock at 11 am and just reported in with a boat limit of groupers, some nice sea bass and a pair of cobias. He is the bottom fishing man. To book a trip, drop me a line and we'll rig you up. He also gigged 14 flounder last night. Talk about burning the candle at both ends....

George

First cobia

We sight cast our first cobia on Sunday, about 60 pounds. A scattered pick has been reported on bait. As the water warms, things should really pick up.

George

Plenty of fish in the river, cobia at the coast

I picked up one of the boats from Weldon this weekend and brought it to the coast. Reports from Capt. Jack, Bryan DeHart and David Haddock are still very good. David caught 5 over 15 pounds yesterday, Bryan caught over 100 fish on Tuesday. The recent rainfall and cool nights have kept the water levels stable and temps low. There are still a huge amount of fish that have yet to spawn. Fishing should remain good through next week.

On the coast, Capt. Ray caught his first cobia on Wednesday, along with a lot of bluefish up to 15 pounds. The water was still a little cool for sight casting, but there are some nice fish being caught on bait behind Shack and in the Hook.

Hope the wind stops blowing and the sun comes out tomorrow, I'll be out there after them.

George

Report from the Coast, dolphins, spanish, cobia

Greg and I looked within 5 miles of the Beaufort yesterday and the water was still cool, 65 degrees. The cobia need about 68 degrees, so it's going to be any day now. There was plenty of bait, nice menhaden and lots of Spanish. All in all, a lot of life, all of the ingredients and the table is set.

Greg charged offshore today and busted the dolphin pretty good, plenty of bailers and several gaffers up to 25 pounds. He also lost a 50 pound tuna at the boat.

Few openings over the next couple of weeks and the fishing is cranking up. Drop us an e mail and get on the list.

I'm off to VA Beach tomorrow night for a fly fishing seminar, but will be back on the salt on Saturday, cobias should be there and snapping.

OK one more report.....

There were 6 feet of stripers stacked up for 1/4 mile below the big rock yesterday afternoon and they were chewing. Every cast on the fly.......until they started spawning. The spawning action was epic, but the fishing wasn't that great. Visually, it was a Discovery Channel moment. There was a good top water bite upstream from the spawning action after the storms blew through.

This morning the top water bite was great from 5:30 am til 7:30 am, then things slowed so we caught about a dozen herring which we turned into a 12 and two 20 pounders. We busted one off that would have eaten any of the others.

George

Final report from the Roanoke

Fishing has been warm, then hot, then warm. No two days seem to be alike. There are still a huge number of fish here and when they decide to bite, it's on fire. Tuesday afternoon was spectacurlar, Greg caught 3 over 15 pounds on soft jerk baits. Yesterday afternoon we had one over 23 pounds on live herring, but the topwater bite wasn't as good as the day before.

This morning things were tough, but in places the depth finder was reading 5 feet of stripers stacked up off the bottom. It looks like things are getting set up for another big day of spawning today or tomorrow.

The water levels are expected to remain stable for a couple of weeks and plenty of fish should stick around through the end of the month. All in all, things have been a bit slow for Roanoke standards, but 50-100 bites/day is spectacular fishing in most places.

It's worth making the trip to Weldon to watch the "fights" and get up early for the top water bite. Drop me an e mail if you have any questions or fishing reports from the Roanoke. I'm heading to the coast on Friday.

Tight lines, calm seas and God Bless,

George

Back on the Roanoke, cobia on the coast

Sounds like I didn't miss much this weekend, things were slow with that last cold front, but the bite really picked up today. The topwater bite this afternoon was spectacular. Greg had several fish over 10 pounds on top water. On the other hand, the cobias are starting to show and I'm getting a little salt fever. We are booked through Sunday on the Roanoke, but have openings next week, both on the Roanoke or on the coast, sight casting cobia.

The Roanoke fishing would be very early morning or late afternoon half days. It should be good fly fishing. There are a lot of fish here that have not spawned and water levels are expected to remain stable for the next two weeks. On the Roanoke, anglers should expect up to 50 fish/day.

Reports from the coast next week......

George

heading out of town....

Capt. Greg and Capt. Ray will be holding down the fort while I'm gone for the weekend. Good topwater bite this morning and Greg and I each caught a couple of big fish on bait. Greg's cell number is 252-671-5857 if you need to get in touch with him.

George

If you left too early today, you missed it.

There was a spectacular top water bite late this afternoon. Plenty of double headers on the fly and spin. Sorry for those who gave up early. It looks like we'll be leaving early 5:45 am and starting at about 3 pm for the afternoon charters.

George

My turn with the big 'uns

We caught about 20 herring this morning and turned them into a bunch of "slot" fish, plus 4 over 15 pounds. Two of those were over 20 pounds. Pretty good jig and fly bite, but things got slow in the middle of the day. They're bunching up again, looks like they'll spawn again any day now. This should turn the topwater bite on again.

George

2 anglers, 60 stripers on the fly in 3 hours

The fly bite was pretty good this afternoon, Greg's two fly anglers were doing just as good. Hopefully things will hold and improve.

George

Capt. Greg and big fish

Capt. Greg put on a show this morning for all of the fly fishermen. He was the only one using live herring and demonstrated that the big fish have arrived and will eat. He caught 6 fish over 18 pounds this morning, including one over 30 and one approaching 40 pounds. The fly bite was decent. The fish are getting stacked up, water is warming and it looks like we'll have some good fly fishing and topwater over the next few days.

George

Latest from Weldon. Expectations for the next week.

I'm sure that there are plenty of theories out there, but from someone who has been on the water every day for the past three weeks, this is my two cents.

Earlier in April we had very low water, which does not encourage the fish to come all the way up the river. We also had very high water temps. The result is that the fish that were here spawned last Monday and Tuesday, at least 2 weeks early.

Then we had a major cold front, air temp dropped 30 degrees and water temp dropped 10 degrees. As a result of the upstream rain, the water rose about 3 feet.

The bad news is that the fish that were here and spawned are out of here, back to the sound and the ocean. The good news is that the cooler temps and rising water is triggering a lot of the downstream fish that have not spawned to come up the river.

The state shocked a lot of new fish and very big fish yesterday and we are seeing a lot of fish with "sea lice" indicating new arrivals. There will be less fish here than normal, but still some very good fishing.

Expectations: Fly fishermen can expect to catch at least 12 fish/person/half day. I believe this is going to double within the next few days as the water warms. Spin fishermen using bait can expect to catch 12-25 fish/person/half day with a shot at a big fish.

Today we fished a two boat trip with Capt. Lee Parsons, his two anglers fly fished all day and caught 41 on the fly. We fly fished part of the day on the fly, catching 23 on the fly and that many more on bait in about two hours.

I do think that things are going to continue to improve, but if you have a trip booked and are not willing to make the trip for these results, contact me immediately.

George

P.S. The crowds are gone and floating down the river is once again a very pleasant experience.

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